Intifada Youth Coalition has decided to break the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza Strip next Friday 29/11 that coincides with the international day for solidarity with the Palestinian people. Around 200 young men and women are preparing for the event along with foreign solidarity activists and media outlets.

The coalition said in a statement on Monday that in cooperation with the fishermen syndicate, the youths would sail aboard 17 boats from Gaza port to break the six nautical miles fishing area designed by the Israeli occupation authorities for Palestinian fishermen.

It said that the step was meant as a message to the world community that a people is living under siege in Gaza and human beings are starving and dying under the very eyes of the so-called civilized world.

The coalition said that the Palestinian people are paying the price of sticking to their rights and constants and for insisting on a dignified life.

A number of participants said they were taking part in this daring initiative in the hope of lifting the oppressive siege on Gaza and shedding light on this tragedy.

The coalition called for a humanitarian initiative to end the blockade on Gaza, and called for sending land and sea convoys to the enclave to break the siege.

Palestinian young men tried on Friday night to demolish part of the racist, separation wall surrounding occupied Jerusalem and isolating it from the West Bank. Local sources said that the young men caused a hole to part of the separation wall established on land of Al-Khader village, south of Bethlehem. They said that the young men monitored the Israeli occupation forces’ patrols and then commenced in their attempt west of Al-Khader village near bypass road 60 that links Jerusalem to Gush Etzion settlement complex.

Activists in the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements have managed to demolish at dawn Friday part of Israeli Apartheid Wall north-west of occupied Jerusalem, and to uproot the barbed wire southern Ramallah near Israeli military Ofer camp. The Popular Committee said that its activists demolished on Friday a ten-meter high portion of the Apartheid Wall near the village of Beir Nabala, northwest of Jerusalem. The Popular Committee's statement said that another group uprooted ten meters of the barbed wire around Ofer prison near the villages of Rafat and Bil’in, opened the iron gate erected to the entrance of Bil'in village, and raised the Palestinian flag on the ruined part of the Apartheid Wall. One of the Popular Committee's activists said that such activities carried out by the Popular Committees aim at inflicting heavy losses on the Israeli occupation.

Palestinian sources said that the Israeli court postponed the trial session of six detained students at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowments and Heritage said in a press statement on Thursday that the Israeli Magistrate's Court postponed the hearing of the 4 students, which was supposed to be held on Thursday, indefinitely. The youths were arrested on charges of disturbing public order in the Aqsa Mosque during raids by groups of settlers in May 2011. Meanwhile, the Israeli police forces arrested two other students at the Aqsa Mosque.

A United Kingdom-based group is stepping up advocacy for human rights and justice in Palestine. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is gathering support for a National Lobby of Parliament for Palestine on November 27, according to a press release on the NGO's website.

The organization will lobby the British government on 4 key issues:

1) Members of Parliament to challenge ethnic cleansing and discriminatory policies

2) Ban settlement goods

3) Respect for prisoners' rights and an end to Israel's illegal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including children.

4) An end to the siege on Gaza

While the most visible advocacy will happen at the British Parliament in London, organizers are encouraging supporters to meet with their MPs one-on-one to discuss issues. They believe international pressure is key if Israel is to change its policies.

"It is our Parliament, they are our MPs - so let's show them they must respect Palestinian human rights if they want our support."

“Nonviolent resistance is like a tree: it needs water to grow.” That was the motto behind Saturday’s gathering of Italians and locals in the Bedouin community of Al-Mufaqara, which lies just inside Firing Zone 918, in the South Hebron Hills. Two Italians came to share their experiences participating in nonviolent resistance, and to show solidarity with the resistance of local Palestinians, who are currently fighting for the right to stay on their ancestral land. Al-Mufaqara, home to some 15 families, is wedged between the Green Line to the south, and a band of illegal settlements to the north. The settlers, most of whom are radically religious, are known to harass children on their way to school and burn Palestinians’ crops. Additionally, the Israeli army continually demolishes homes and other structures in the community. The village’s mosque, which Israeli forces demolished twice, is currently a pile of rubble. Sara, an Operation Dove volunteer who has been in Al-Mufaqara for over a year, told PNN that the group escorts children to school and provides an international, peacekeeping presence, while supporting Palestinian nonviolent resistance. This resistance, Sara explained, takes the form of daily acts such as re-building demolished structures, continuing to shepherd and attend school despite being attacked, and most importantly, staying on the land. Sara continued, saying the people of Al-Mufaqara don’t just wish to survive this systemic violence; instead they are fighting to bring electricity and water to the community, part of affirming their presence and their right to thrive on their land. Operation Dove, which has been working in Al-Mufaqara since 2004, organizes one annual event for the community, in which they invite guests to share their experiences participating in nonviolent resistance. The goal of this initiative, which was started on request of the local Popular Committee, is to “water the tree of nonviolent resistance” that thrives in Al-Mufaqara. Two men, active during the 1970’s “Years of Lead” conflict in Italy, shared their paths to non-violence. One man was part of the armed resistance, and during one occasion had killed a cohort of Italian police. The other was the son of one of those police officers. While the first spent 30 years in prison with multiple life sentences, the other spent those years with a ‘heart full of hatred,’ as he put it. Eventually, the prisoner joined a hunger strike advocating for humane conditions in the prison. “When I began to fight in a nonviolent way,” he said, “I no longer felt isolated, and it became possible for me to connect and communicate with people.” That initial step in nonviolent resistance impacted him deeply, and he began to advocate for a cessation of armed struggle. Meanwhile, the man whose father was murdered realized that his wound could not heal while he was still full of hate. Eventually the two men decided to meet one another. “We are not here to give advice to the Palestinians in their struggle, but simply to share our experiences,” they told PNN through an Operation Dove translator. “We want to testify that it is possible to meet [one’s adversaries] as human beings.” Al-Mufaqara lies within Area C, which constitutes some 60% of the West Bank and is under complete Israeli military and administrative authority. Firing Zone 918 is a 30 square-mile area within Area C in the South Hebron Hills, which has been illegally declared a “military training zone” by the Israeli regime. The area’s residents were evicted in 1999, however they successfully petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice, which allowed for their “temporary return.” For over a decade since, the approximately 1000 people in the area have been living with uncertainty of their future and continued harassment by the Israeli military and illegal settlers. The families of Al-Mafuqara, along with the other residents in Firing Zone 918 will continue to resist Israeli military and settler attempts to displace them or delegitimize their right to continue living on the land their ancestors have farmed and shepherded for over two centuries.

A garden of flowers planted in used tear gas grenades memorializes Bassem Abu Rahmah, killed by Israeli forces in 2009 in Bil’in. But recent AP photo coverage looks mostly at the flowers and misses the memorial. The act is one of both peaceful resistance and an answer to the separation wall erected by the State of Israel. Residents of the village of Bil’in have created an oasis in the arid landscape of the West Bank, and sown flowers in tear gas canisters which were fired at protesters by Israeli forces. Bassem Abu Rahmah, a protest leader, was killed in 2009 when Israeli forces shot him in the chest with a tear gas grenade. The garden is to commemorate him and other victims in the Palestinians’ fight for their land. However, that key context of the garden was missing from the photos in a widely circulated Associated Press photo story. None of the AP photos included the centerpiece of the memorial garden, a translucent photo of Bassem mounted on a frame of spent tear gas shell casings. Moreover, photo captions identified only “A Palestinian woman” watering the garden, failing to mention that it was Sabiha Abu Rahmah, Bassem’s mother.

An AP article text that accompanied the photos on many news sites did mention Bassem’s death and that of his cousin Jawaher, who is believed to have died because of tear gas inhalation in 2011. But some publications, such as the UK’s Daily Mail, did not include the AP text, instead running a staff writer’s summary of Israel’s word against “critics” regarding the separation wall. On Ynet‘s version, not only is there no mention of the Abu Rahmah deaths as the reason for the memorial garden, but their concluding sentence further obfuscates the price of Bilin’s resistance: “Every Friday, Palestinian and Israeli leftist activists come to protest the separation fence at the site, and several of these demonstrations have ended in injuries.” Who injures whom and how badly is left to the reader’s imagination. In addition to memorializing the Abu Rahma family’s losses, the eclectic potted plants also mark land that Palestine was able to reclaim two years ago through a protracted court battle that finally re-routed Israel’s wall. Residents of Bilin say 60% of their farmland was cut off by the Israeli separation wall. Since 2005, villagers have been going out almost every Friday for anti-wall protests, which often result in violent crackdowns by Israeli forces. Bilin has become a symbol of Palestinian protests against Israeli policies in the West Bank, and the village’s struggle to regain its land became the subject of a 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary Five Broken Cameras. Since the Israeli regime began building the separation wall in 2002, the route has been the target of regular protests waged by residents of various towns whose land is threatened by or has already been cut off by the barrier. What many outside the Palestinian community misunderstand is how the Israeli government has effectively confiscated large plots of Palestinian land in order to erect the barrier. When the 435-mile barrier is complete, 85 percent of it will have been built inside the West Bank, rather than on the internationally recognized Green Line between the State of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The result is that the wall does not simply divide “Israel from the West Bank” as is often stated, but rather Palestinian land from Palestinian land, dividing farmers from their land, children from schools, and families from each other.This article was originally posted on +972 Magazine.

Palestinian activists called on all Palestinians to take part in “Palestinian Spring” revolution to be launched on the 2nd of November to resist Oslo Accords and its godfathers. The statement, released by Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, accused the PA of helping the Israeli occupation to achieve its goals in expanding towards the “Arab region”, conceding the Palestinian unalienable rights including the right of return, and relinquishing the holy places for the sake of keeping the authority over the Palestinian people.

The statement called for the fall of Oslo Accords in order to correct the “historical mistake” and “to clean our struggle record from this shameful agreement”.

A delegation of the intifada youth coalition met in Gaza on Saturday with a number of foreign activists for consultations on the planned demonstration to break the Israeli naval siege on the Strip. A coalition statement said that the delegates briefed the activists from Ireland, Switzerland, USA, Italy, Spain, and Brazil on the planned demonstration and invited them to participate in it. It said that the foreign activists supported the plan and declared their participation, adding that the plan envisages breaking the 6-nautical-mile limit imposed by the Israeli occupation on the fishermen of Gaza. The statement said that the discussion covered means of responding to the expected Israeli act against the sea demonstration. The foreign activists included some of those who came to Gaza in the first vessel to break the naval blockade while others participated in planning the Marmara ship sea voyage to Gaza that was intercepted and attacked by Israeli forces.

Intifada Youth Coalition said international solidarity activists are to take part in the its activity intended to break the naval Israeli blockade by bypassing six nautical miles limit.

The coalition said Saturday in a statement that "it convened consultative meetings with foreign activists based in Gaza explain the details of the upcoming move, who in return expressed their willing to participate," The statement added the meeting discussed the scenarios of what occupation naval forces would react to act accordingly. Some of the potential participants were on board the first ship sailed to the Gaza Strip and others on board the aid vessel Mavi Marmara which were raided by Israeli commandos in May 2010 having 11 Turkish citizens killed. The coalition saluted the revolutionary youths' resistance of the occupation in the West Bank and stressed its calls for a third popular Intifada (uprising). It called on West Bank Palestinians to go down the streets next Friday to support the occupied Jerusalem and the Holy Sites.

Palestinian activists demolished Thursday afternoon, the gate of the Israeli apartheid wall that separates Cremisan Monastery and Al-Walaja village in the West Bank city of Beit Jala. Munther Ameera, director of Aida Youth Activity Center, said that activists demolished the gate of the apartheid wall, constructed on the lands of Bethlehem and passes through al-Walajeh village. He added that with the demolition of the wall, the village has become accessible from two sides and that theresidents are now able to reach their lands and cultivate them. Amerah told PNN that the implementation of the Bil'in International Popular Resistance Conference started today, noting that the resolutions focused on reviving popular resistance and insisting that Palestinian have the right to remove the barriers imposed on their lands.

Dozens of Palestinian youths staged a sit-in in front of the UN headquarters on Wednesday afternoon in Gaza City to demand the United Nations to shoulder its responsibilities vis-à-vis the suffering of the Palestinian people. Intifada Youth Coalition handed a letter directed to the UN to one of its representatives in Gaza, in which the young people urged the organization to intervene to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem, to lift the Gaza siege and to remove the restrictions imposed on the citizens of the West Bank.

The youths informed the representative of the United Nations of their intention to break the naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and called for providing the participants in the event with international protection, especially after the occupation announced the deployment of advanced battleships off the coast of Gaza.

The coalition demanded the Palestinian masses to head to all points of contact next Friday and confront the occupation soldiers and armed settlers.

It also stressed on its intention to break the barrier of the 6 nautical miles imposed on Gaza fishermen, and said it held consultations with foreign activists and some human rights organizations in the Strip regarding the implementation of the activity expected in the coming days.

Residents of Bil'in town have created a large rose garden using Israeli tear gas shells for planting seedlings. The tear gas bombs were fired by Israeli soldiers along the past years during protests against the Apartheid Wall. The garden was made in the same place where the martyr Bassem Abu Rahma was killed after being shot by a tear gas canister at short range in 2010. Bassem’s mother told the PIC reporter that she has sued the occupation for killing her son however the case was closed, stressing that her son was martyred while defending Palestine and Jerusalem. The people of the town said that they decided to create this garden to send message to the world that the Palestinian people have hope despite the wounds.

Meanwhile, the popular resistance in Bil'in has organized on Wednesday its annual conference for popular resistance attended by a large number of Palestinian factions' leaders and representatives and foreign activists.

The four-day conference was organized in the liberated part of the town after managing to gain a decision from the ICC to restore the lands confiscated by the occupation.

For his part, Bassem al-Tamimi a leader of the Popular Resistance in Nabi Saleh village called during the conference for escalating popular resistance in the coming days especially in light of the political crisis.

Resistance is the sole effective option to address the occupation, he stressed, calling for a national strategy to overcome this crisis.

The occupation had confiscated 2,200 dunums of lands in Bil'in village, while the villagers managed to restore 1200 acres of them in 2011 where economic projects and public parks for children were established.

The confiscated lands are located near Modi'in settlement built on the village's lands. It is worth mentioning that violent clashes take place each Fridays in the village when soldiers try to quell peaceful demonstrations protesting the apartheid wall and the land confiscation.

Intifada Youth Coalition announced his intention to break the naval blockade, breaking the 6-nautical-mile limit imposed by the Israeli occupation on the fishermen of Gaza. The coalition said in a statement Tuesday "it is discussing the move with several bodies to freely organize a demonstration to break the naval blockade and by passing the six nautical miles," The coalition also called on the Palestinians to rally next Friday after Friday prayers in a day if rage against Israel's occupation measures. The Coalition stressed that it would hold on Wednesday at 2:00 pm a sit-in in front of the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City to demand the international organization to mount pressure on the Israeli occupation in order to stop its on settlement on the Palestinian land.

Dozens of activists have managed on Monday to re-build Khirbet Makhoul despite the Israeli military restrictions on the area after being demolished three times in the past two weeks. The activists have set-up tents in Khirbet Makhoul in Wadi al-Maleh northern Jordan Valley challenging the Israeli decision that declared the area a closed military zone, eyewitnesses said. The sources told PIC reporter that the activists managed to break the curfew and the Israeli decision, stressing that they will not leave the Palestinian land. The activists confirmed that they will build Khirbet Makhoul repeatedly and continuously in case it is demolished again by the Israeli forces.

Hamas has launched in the West Bank a new popular campaign in support of al-Aqsa mosque under the title of "I have the right to pray at al-Aqsa" demanding entry into Jerusalem to perform prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque. Faraj Romana, a leader in the movement, declared in a press conference in Ramallah the launch of the campaign's website.

The campaign includes a popular march in al-Bireh city near Ramallah next Friday, the leader noted.

He added that banners in support of al-Aqsa and prisoners' issues will be held aloft during the march, noting that his movement will organize a rally entitled "al-Aqsa is in danger".

Hamas movement called on PA security forces to stop repressing marches in support of al-Aqsa mosque and persecuting its organizers.

The Islamic movement also called on national and Islamic forces to override all differences and unite their efforts for the liberation of al-Aqsa mosque.

Romana stressed the need to unite all Arab and Islamic efforts to put an end to the Israeli daily violations.

The PA security forces have repressed several marches and events in support of al-Aqsa mosque organized by Hamas movement in West Bank.

Dozens of Palestinian activists and international supporters succeeded Saturday in reaching an area of the Dead Sea where they raised the Palestinian flag, according to the activists. Hasan Breijeh, one of the activists from Bethlehem, said that even though the Israeli military had set up checkpoints on the roads leading to Jericho and the Dead Sea and arrested activists, including three arrested at the “Container” checkpoint leading out of Bethlehem to the main Jericho-Jerusalem road, at least 30 activists succeeded in reaching the Fashkha area on the Dead Sea. He said the activists raised the Palestinian flag and signs denouncing Israeli seizure of Palestinian land to build settlements on it.

Dozens of Palestinian youths on Tuesday smashed a hole in Israel's separation wall in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem, locals said.

The youths managed to open a 60-cm hole in the wall separating the village from Jerusalem, before Israeli forces arrived at the scene and fired tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber coated steel bullets to disperse the Palestinians, witnesses said.

Fatah leader in Abu Dis Anwar Bader told Ma'an that demonstrations were held in al-Eizariya and Abu Dis in solidarity against Israeli violations in Jerusalem.

The demonstrations turned into clashes when Palestinians threw rocks and empty bottles and closed the roads with burning tires, he added.

Demonstrations in solidarity with Jerusalem have taken place across the Palestinian territories after Israel repeatedly limited Palestinian access to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque over the past weeks.

The al-Aqsa compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque and is the third holiest site in Islam.

It is also venerated as Judaism's most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood.

Events of digging a hole in the Separation Wall in Abu DeesViolent clashes broke out on Friday night between the Palestinian young men and Israeli forces in Abu Dees and Bethany in support of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Witnesses said that young men initiated marches in the towns of Abu Dees and Bethany and chanted for Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa and refusing its desecration by the settlers. The march quickly turned into violent clashes with the Israeli forces that were deployed in the area who randomly fired gas bombs and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters in addition to spraying them with waste water which was also sprayed towards the residents and buildings. Witnesses added that dozens of young men were able to dig a hole using hand tools in the Separation Wall in the area of Kasbah Intersection which separates the city of Jerusalem from Abu Dees before the Israeli forces arrived and fired bombs to disperse the young men.

Hundreds participated in mass rallies on Friday in northern Gaza Strip to condemn the Israeli continued siege on Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the return to the PLO-Israel negotiations, local media reported. The marches were called for by Hamas Movement. They set off after Friday prayers from the Al-Kholafaa El Rashedin mosque in Jabalya refugee camp and roamed a number of the streets of the camp.

The rallies, headed by ministers, MPs and a number of Hamas leaders, raised banners condemning Israeli measures in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and slogans rejecting the resumption of negotiations.

"Storming Al-Aqsa and the attempts to Judaize it represent a natural result of negotiations based on more concessions from the Palestinian side in light of the Arab countries' preoccupation in their internal affairs", Hamas leader Mohammed Abu Askar said.

On the eve of August 31, roughly 600 protesters gathered in downtown Tel Aviv to protest the Prawer Plan, a law that would mandate the forced relocation of centuries-old Bedouin tribes in order to impose "order" in Israel's Naqab (Negev in Hebrew) desert.

Palestinian Bedouins protested that night alongside other 1948 Palestinian and Jewish activists from Tsedek Hevrati (Social Justice) of Hadash, a joint Jewish-Arab party. Among those present was Sheikh Sayah of the Al Araqib village, who had just been released from the Rahat detention center a couple days prior, along with his two sons and cousin.

The four had been arrested without charges, and the terms of their release were that they abide by a restraining order barring them from their village. They refused to sign the agreement, however, and said they wished instead to stay in custody. After four days, they were forcibly released under those terms.

"What reason did they have to keep me and my sons from our village?" said Sheikh Sayah to a reporter at the demonstration. "I ask, but I know the answer. They want to set a precedent with this restraining order. But I did not accept this." So they returned to the police station and demanded to be rearrested. When they were refused, they decided to camp outside the station for three days and nights. Finally, the court issued a reversal of the restraining order.

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SINCE 2010, the Israeli government has demolished the village of Al Araqib more than 56 times, three times in the last 10 days of August alone. Refusing to leave their land, the inhabitants continue to return and rebuild the village and are currently occupying its graveyard.

The Bedouin families of Al Arakib claim ownership of roughly 4,600 acres of land, and they hold deeds dating back to 1906. According to the ILA, the land had been abandoned in the 1950s. Later, it offered to rent the land back to the Bedouins for 2 NIS per dunam (equivalent to about $.56 for roughly a quarter of an acre), which would amount today to more than $10,000 a year, a sum not feasible for a Bedouin tribe in Israel.

In 1998, the ILA offered the land to the JNF, which has a specific mandate to develop and lease land only to Jews. In 2000, an Israeli court order banned the Bedouins from entering their land, but the ruling was disregarded, as Bedouins continued to move back into the village and plant trees. The ILA went so far as to destroy the Bedouins' agricultural plots by using crop dusters to fumigate their wheat fields.

In July 2010, ILA inspectors and 1,300 police officers in full riot gear entered the village, demolishing 46 buildings and uprooting 850 olive, citrus and almond trees. Witnesses said they were accompanied by "busloads of cheering [Jewish] civilians."

Men, women and children were carried from their homes, which were then demolished. Special forces troops surrounded the area, as helicopters hovered overhead. The village chicken coop was flattened with all the chickens in it. The Bedouins have since collected evidence of the many demolitions, including rubber bullets, tear gas canisters and spent stun grenades. Many of the children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Palestinians believe that planting a tree connects them to their land. After Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, many Palestinian villages were covered over with pine trees by the JNF. They uprooted hundreds of olive trees, sometimes planting their own orchards in their place. Today, the same war of trees is still being waged.

Environmental protection specialists, both foreign and Israeli, have contended that the JNF's forestation causes serious and irreparable damage to the natural landscape. Invasive trees like these can be seen elsewhere. Non-local pine trees are common in settlements in the West Bank and around Jerusalem; hundreds of saplings, sometimes simply planted in barrels, surround fields that Palestinian farmers are forbidden to enter. These trees are designed to ensure Jewish Israeli control.

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THE OFFICIAL Israeli reasoning behind the Prawer plan is that "development" of the region will provide an opportunity to provide the Bedouin population with better education, health care and infrastructure, such as electricity. "We are determined to narrow the gap," said Mark Regev, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. "They are citizens of Israel and are entitled to all the opportunities associated with being citizens."

But this is very different than what Netanyahu was saying just three years ago, quoted in the Hebrew version of Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper:

We are a nation state, which means that the overall sovereignty of the country is reserved for the Jewish people...Today, an international campaign is being waged against the definition of Israel as a Jewish state...[If] in the Negev [the Hebrew name for the Naqab desert], for example, if it becomes a region without a Jewish majority...[this] constitutes a real threat.

And of course, Netanyahu has no intention of addressing the impoverishment that Bedouins face. The new state registration policy will in fact relocate the Bedouins in the slums of the Naqab's "development" towns, exacerbating their desperate conditions.

Under the Prawer Plan, an estimated 50,000 Palestinians will be forced to leave their homes and grazing lands. Some 35 villages will be demolished. In exchange for the roughly 800,000 dunams of land that will be expropriated (roughly 198,000 acres), the Bedouins will receive compensation for up to 50 percent of the land they lay claim to and land equal to about 1 percent of the sum total of that land. Additionally, under the new law, there will be no court venue through which to appeal eviction. And those who do not claim their compensation and agree to the terms within the first six months of the plan's implementation will lose all rights to reparations.

Despite the JNF's insistence that the plans are beneficial to the Bedouins and that they are working with the tribes, no Bedouins were involved in the planning or the drafting of the Prawer Plan. According to Rabbis for Human Rights, the Prawer Plan is intended to clear the way for a collaboration between the American consulting firm McKinsey & Company and the JNF-USA headed by right-wing billionaire Ron Lauder. Entitled Blueprint Negev, the new Jewish settlement plans are being developed by the JNF in conjunction with Or–National Missions, an organization whose purpose is the Judaiztion of the Naqab and the Galilee valley.

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THOUGH THE Prawer Plan still needs to pass two more readings in parliament to become law, evictions are already underway. This is likely because under the terms of the law, land expropriated prior to the law's implementation will not be eligible for compensation.

Additionally the tribes must also have an Original Ownership Claim filed between 1971 and 1979 and approved by the ILA to be eligible for compensation. In the case of Al Araqib, the village was in fact approved in 1973, but only for the two tents that were erected at the time. The founding of Al Araqib followed a series of forced expulsions of Bedouins in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Since then, the tribe managed to rebuild the village, and the population itself has naturally grown.

Furthermore, any land with a slope of 13 percent or greater is automatically expropriated. In order to irrigate in the dry desert climate, slopes are essential because the rain rarely reaches the low points under such hot conditions. Palestinian agriculture is based on creating layered "terraces" along the hills so that the rainwater can be utilized from top to bottom.

While Bedouins must work very hard to prove their claims, and their forcible removal from the Naqab enters full swing, Jewish ranchers are encouraged to settle down in the desert. Titled the "Wine Route Plan," Israel's parliament passed a law only a few years ago allowing the allocation of land to private Jewish ranches, [PDF] most of which already existed. These ranches and small settlements are a relatively new phenomenon. They have no deeds or original claims from the 1970s.

The Bedouins of Israel are standing up for their elementary rights. But they are facing a powerful coalition of both state authorities and non-state players, including the JNF and the security forces, private corporations and settlers.

As the protesters marched through the streets of Tel Aviv, Sheikh Sayah turned to me and said, "You see, there will be peace when there is justice. And there will be justice when your son and my son feel that they are equal, that they are part of one community, one tribe."